The Weeping Angels of Mons (comic story)

The Weeping Angels of Mons
Doctor:	Tenth Doctor
Companion(s):	Gabby
Main enemy:	Weeping Angels
Main setting:	Belgium, 21 August 1914; Germany, July 1916; The Somme, July 1916, 2007; Dundee, 28 December 1879; New York City, 1892
Key crew
Publisher:	Titan Comics
Editor:	Andrew James
Writer:	Robbie Morrison
Cover by:	Tommy Lee Edwards (regular), AJ (subscription incentive)
Artist:	Daniel Indro
Colourist:	Slamet Mujiono
Letterer:	Richard Starkings, Jimmy Betancourt
Release details
Printed in:	10D 6-9
Release date:	14 January - 15 April 2015
Cover date:	January - April 2015
Reprinted in:	[[reprint::Doctor Who Comic #6-8|'Doctor Who Comic #6-8]]
Traded in:	The Weeping Angels of Mons
Format:	Comic
Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor
← Previous	The Arts in Space
Next →	Echo

The Weeping Angels of Mons was the third story of the Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor comic strip series published in 2015.

Summary

When Gabby and the Doctor arrive by accident in No Man's Land in July, 1916, they're met by Corporal Jamie Colquhoun — a soldier who knows from bitter experience that there are worse things than the Jerries out in the rat-strewn trenches.

Things that drift through the smoke of a thousand cannon shells, and move only when you look away. Shadows that flit over artillery-blasted field hospitals and throw their terrifying wings over the living. Statues that steal your life in an instant.

The Weeping Angels.

But in a conflict where the life of young men is cheap, and thousands die every day — are the Angels actually offering salvation?

Trapped in the midst of a flock of starving Angels, the Doctor faces his most challenging and terrifying moral dilemma yet!

Plot

Part one

21st August 1914: Jamie Colquhoun and Harry, both members of the Scottish regiment, have only been in the war for three weeks, but have recently been moved to Mons, Belgium, and are on a reconnaisance mission. Jamie writes a letter to his sister Jeanie, who Harry wants to propose to. Turning away to look at a photograph of her, he suddenly notices movement, and aims his gun towards a statue and fires. He moves his head around to warn Jamie, only to then be killed by the Weeping Angel.

July 1916: The TARDIS materialises in No Man's Land on the Western Front in Germany. Gabby is taken aback because it is not beautiful history as she imagined, only desolation. Uncovering a gas mask, the Doctor realises that it is the First World War. Gabby and the Doctor run back to the TARDIS as mines go off. However, the TARDIS is caught in the blast — along with the Doctor, who is knocked out.

In the trenches, Jamie, now a corporal, is writing to Jeanie about the war. Captain Fairbairn has recently arrived, whilst the soldiers are preparing for the Big Push into the Somme. Jamie's faith has been crushed by war, seeing not Heaven but Hell. The regiment are surprised to find Gabby and the Doctor in the trench, and, although believing them to be spies, take the Doctor to a field hospital be looked over by a military chaplain who is surprised to learn he has two hearts. Suddenly, a soldier blinded during the battle awakens and screams, "Don't blink!" He rips the bandages off to reveal eyelids forcefully sewn open, likely by the patient himself.

Two soldiers, Manny Simmons and Big Wullie Cairns, smoke a cigarette outside besides a statue and discuss how the war has affected them. Walking away from the statue, they turn to find the statue has moved and is lurching towards Manny...

Part two

to be added

Part three

to be added

Part four

to be added

Characters

• Tenth Doctor
• Gabby Gonzalez
• Jamie Colquhoun
• Weeping Angels
• Douglas Fairbairn
• Shuggy
• Brigitte

References

• Harry thinks the war will be over by Christmas, but Jamie questions which Christmas that is.
• The Doctor references the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
• The Doctor references a school of Sontarans who were executed for painting.
• Jamie signed up on his 18th birthday on 29 July 1914.
• Captain Fairbairn says his father fought the Zulu and his great-grandfather marched with Wellington against Napoleon during the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815.
• Gabby calls the Doctor "Doctor Strange".

Notes

• The C cover, depicting the silhouette of a Weeping Angel, a soldier and the TARDIS, is an homage to the covers to the graphic novels for Charley's War, a 1970s/80s comic series about the First World War by Pat Mills. The name of the soldier, Jamie Colquhoun, alludes to the artist Joe Colqhoun, who drew the series.
• The final scene set in the past, which depicts the war-torn fields fading into a field of flowers slowly, is reminiscent of the final scene from Blackadder.
• The Doctor is wearing black converses. Conventionally, he wears red or blue converses.
• The Doctor realises he can avoid the Weeping Angels by winking rather than forcing his eyes open or blinking.

Original print details

to be added

Continuity

• The Tenth Doctor previously encountered the Weeping Angels in London in 2007. (TV: Blink)
• Gabby references her and the Doctor's first adventure together, "an artist who deals in homicidal sculptures." (COMIC: The Arts in Space)
• When the Doctor wakes up, he begins singing the lyrics to War by Edwin Starr. He, the Brigadier, and others had previously listed out the lyrics to the song in another scenario. (COMIC: The Warkeeper's Crown)
• Jamie thinks the Doctor is Gabby's boyfriend. (COMIC: Revolutions of Terror)
• The Doctor references promising "one trip" to Gabby, and concedes he has taken her on "one trip too many." (COMIC: The Arts in Space)
• Gabby sketches her travels with the Doctor. (COMIC: The Arts in Space)
• Jamie compares the TARDIS to H.G. Wells' novel The Time Machine. The Doctor says that "Herbert" had stolen the idea from him. (TV: Timelash)
• The Doctor and Gabby visit an elderly Jamie Colqhon at St. Michel War Cemetery in the Somme in 2007; the Doctor has visited many veterans of this conflict, including Tim Latimer. (TV: Human Nature/The Family of Blood)